The Official NeoCities Blog: "...The bonehead responsible for this idiotic and insane proposal is no less than the chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, a cable industry hand-picked lobbyist. The FCC isn't doing their job of protecting American consumers, or producers like Neocities users. Perhaps they got a dump truck full of money from the cable corporation lobby ... it looks like they need some help remembering what their job is. Since the FCC seems to have no problem with this idea, I've ... throttled all connections from the FCC to 28.8kbps modem speeds on the Neocities.org front site, and I'm not removing it until the FCC pays us for the bandwidth they've been wasting instead of doing their jobs protecting us from the "keep America's internet slow and expensive forever" lobby."...If it bothers you that I'm doing this, I want to point out that everyone is going to be doing crap like this after the FCC rips apart Net Neutrality. It's time for the web to organize and stand up against these thugs before they ruin everything that the web stands for..."AT&T claims common carrier rules would ruin the whole Internet | Ars Technica: "...As usual, AT&T's positions are laughable at best—though disingenuous is more like it," Matt Wood, policy director of consumer advocacy group Free Press, told Ars. "Nothing in Title II says that every last provision has to apply to any Title II service. That's the whole point of forbearance ..."To look at a real-world example instead of an AT&T fantasy: mobile voice is a common carrier service, and yet CMRS [commercial mobile radio service] providers are barred from charging access fees," Wood also said... "Nothing about Title II commands the results that AT&T's straw man argument suggests." Public Knowledge Senior VP Harold Feld agreed. "To a large extent, this is just scary mumbo-jumbo to make Title II look big and complicated," Feld told Ars...Many of the issues raised by AT&T were already hashed out in FCC proceedings in 2010, "which saves a lot of time," Feld said...."Washington Targets Cupertino by Mark P. Mills, City Journal 9 May 2014: "....Even after Edward Snowden’s leaks of National Security Agency activities, the Obama administration seems less worried about its own spying than about the private sector’s use of private data... Silicon Valley innovators are rolling out Web-based alternatives to brick-and-mortar businesses, and regulators—along with the special interests they protect—are responding in kind....It was only a matter of time before Silicon Valley became a target of federal oversight. Like moths to a bright light, money attracts Washington’s political and regulatory classes. Tech companies are among the biggest holders—or for some, “hoarders”—of $2 trillion in profits sitting in offshore tax havens. (The United States once had the lowest corporate tax rate in the industrial world; it now has the highest.)..."Heard on the Street: Alibaba's Magic Fades on SoftBank - WSJ.com: "SoftBank investors have more to keep in mind than just Alibaba's valuation. The company posted a 28% on-year decline in net profit for the three months ended in March, weighed down by costs from serial acquisitions and a telecom price war in Japan. And SoftBank still appears keen for its Sprint unit to make a bid for T-Mobile, despite regulator skepticism. The deal has strategic logic as it would help consolidate Sprint's position in the U.S., but it would also expand SoftBank's net debt, which already is at six times Ebitda, much higher than telecom peers."Sorry, Wannabe Models: Amazon Now Owns the Patent for ‘Photography Against A White Background’ | TIME.com: "...The specifics listed in Amazon’s filing, however, would appear to render the patent itself unenforceable, as they’re not hard to get around. But that begs the question: Why even file in the first place?"Apple in Talks to Buy Beats Electronics for $3.2 BillionWall Street JournalA look at how Apple's acquisition of Beats Electronics might bolster its retail arsenal. WSJ's Drew Hinshaw on the growing frustration with the search ...Apple to authorities: 'Show warrant to get data'MarketWatchSAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch)—Apple has unveiled updated guidelines for dealing with government requests for customer information, including a ...Facebook kills Poke and Camera appsPCWorldFacebook has removed its standalone Poke app, an early clone of Snapchat, as well as its Camera app, from Apple's iTunes app store. A Facebook ...Google's Little Box Challenge; A $1 Million Prize For Creating A Better, Smaller, Solar Power InverterForbesGoogle Google has announced a $1 million prize in what they're calling the “Little Box Challenge”. The aim is to create a smaller, cheaper, power ...Google to Facebook Seen as Too Big for EU Nations' Privacy CzarsBloombergWith U.S. companies such as Facebook, Apple Inc. (AAPL), and LinkedIn Corp. ...Google's biggest European privacy fine to date was 1 million euros by ... European citizens,” said Sabina Gockel, a spokeswoman for Microsoft Corp.Microsoft trumpets Internet Explorer 11 for Windows Phone 8.1, but reviews varyPCWorldMicrosoft crowed about advances in Internet Explorer 11 for Windows Phone 8.1 earlier this week, but so far reviews from users are mixed. Microsoft ...

How to help our beleaguered beesMiamiHerald.comBee populations are declining precipitously. Sadly, that's no longer news. Beginning in fall 2006, beekeepers reported fatalities of 30 to 90 percent of their hives, U.S. Department of Agriculture records show. This phenomenon became known as Colony ...